Recognize and treat Internet addiction

by Dr. Hatim Omar & Dr. Stephanie Stockburger

(Medical Xpress)—Do you stay up late into the night using the Internet? Are you grumpy or anxious when you cannot log on? Do you feel the need to use the Internet more and more to feel satisfied? Do you stay online longer than you intended? Is your Internet use interfering with your social life, work, or academic performance? Do you continue to use the Internet despite family conflict about your use? Have you lied in order to conceal your involvement with the Internet?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be suffering from Internet addiction.

Internet addiction is characterized by excessive use or many hours spent in non-work technology-related computer, Internet, or video game use.

According to an article titled, "Internet Addiction: A Brief Summary of Research and Practice" recently published in Current Psychiatry Reviews, symptoms of Internet addiction include:

Internet addiction can be difficult to diagnose. The committee in charge of creating the newest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM 5) considered including Internet addiction as a diagnosis but decided instead to characterize it as an area requiring further research. Because Internet addiction does not have standard diagnostic criteria, it is difficult to know how prevalent Internet addiction is.

The reported prevalence rate of Internet addiction varies from 0.3 percent to 38 percent of the population. Internet addiction is much more widely diagnosed in Europe and Asia, which are also more advanced than the United States in the treatment of Internet addiction. The goal of treatment is to learn to use the Internet in moderation as opposed to abstaining completely.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has published guidelines regarding media in children and teens on their website at AAP.org called "Media and Children."

According to the AAP, excessive media use can lead to attention problems, school difficulties, sleep and eating disorders, and obesity.

Parents and guardians can help their children learn to use the Internet wisely by having rules about use. Those rules include:

No computer in the bedroom

Set a good example regarding appropriate use

Offer non-electronic educational materials

Set total "screen time" (including Internet, television, cell phones and electronic games) to no more than one to two hours per day. In addition, children under two years of age should not have access to "screen time" since their brains are developing rapidly during this time period and children learn by interacting with people, not screens

Internet addiction disorder may be associated with abnormal white matter structure in the brain, as reported in the Jan. 11 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE. These structural features may be linked to behavioral impair ...

Everybody is talking about Internet addiction. Medically, this phenomenon has not yet been as clearly described as nicotine or alcohol dependency. But a study conducted by researchers from the University of Bonn and the Central ...

Previous research among young and older adults has suggested that the context in which drinking occurs may contribute to specific alcohol-related problems, such as aggression, risky sex, and drinking and driving. However, ...

Research on genetic and environmental influences underlying alcohol use has thus far failed to uncover specific causes, likely because genetic and environmental influences vary by context. A study of the moderating effects ...

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has today (12 March) published a major report on powdered cocaine and its impact on British society which was authored by a group led by a University of Manchester academic.

Cigarette use among white teenagers is substantially higher than among black and Hispanic teenagers, especially at 18 years old, according to Penn State researchers. Alcohol and marijuana use are also higher in white teenagers, ...

User comments

So all my life I've been curious, hanging out in libraries, reading newspapers and magazines, watching movies and lectures, but now my lifelong interest in information is going to be labeled by the nanny state an "addiction" because I don't have to chase around any more?

I call BS.

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.